Big Salmon Lake always enjoyed and never returned

"No!" Wildfire replied hastily, not wanting her mother to think for a second she was anything other than awake, alive and enthusiastic. This was her first time setting foot outside of the caldera and it was thrilling and nerve-wracking all at once. She stuck close to Fox, often gently bumping against her, while she swept their unfamiliar surroundings with her senses.

Not long after answering Fox's question, Wildfire glanced over her shoulder, looking backward for the first time. "Look!" she said, stopping in her tracks. The caldera was nothing but a tiny, topless cone in the distance. Fox had likely seen this sight a thousand times, yet that did not occur to the child. "It's so far! We're so far," Wildfire exclaimed wonderingly, swinging back around to face her mother.

Up ahead, she could see a lake shimmering, reflecting the clear cerulean sky. "Is that Lake Rodney...?" she asked uncertainly. Something didn't add up about that, which her mother quickly corrected. Wildfire nodded, adding the name Big Salmon Lake to a mental catalog of territories which was currently quite short.

But soon it would grow. Something about the strange wilderness surrounding her made her spirit sing. A human might have referred to it as the call of the wild. It was the DeMonte wanderlust in her bloodline, unrecognized but very much there. She didn't know it yet but soon Wildfire would learn the true depth of her migrant heritage, via her own eagerness to trot the globe.